Iram - The Atlantis of The Sands
In the fall of 1930, legendary British explorer Bertram Thomas set out on his most historic journey. He would attempt to become the first European to cross the daunting Rub’al Khali, that inhospitable Arabian desert known intimidatingly to English speakers as the ‘Empty Quarter.’
Covering an area of some 250,000 square miles, stretching through Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen in the south of the Arabian Peninsula, the Empty Quarter is larger than the country of France, the largest sand desert in the world in terms of volume, with 800-foot-tall dunes blocking the path of would-be travelers.
But if any European was going to be able to cross it, it was probably Bertram Thomas.
Born in Somerset, England in 1892, Thomas had been sent to Mesopotamia during World War I, where he quickly took to the area and its people, and they to him, fighting alongside local forces, and even becoming a high-ranking political advisor to the Sultan of Oman.
He knew the area and what he was in for; he knew how to survive.
So, on October 6th, 1930, he set off from Salalah on the coast of Oman in the company of 25 Bedouin guides, to begin his historic attempt. As he later described,
“They struck northwards over the Qara Mountains, some 3,000 feet high, through frankincense groves and thence into the great unknown Steppe.”
For the next 59 days, Thomas was neither seen nor heard from. In fact, his own government was unaware of where he was or what he was doing, and would likely have expressly forbidden him from making the attempt if they had known about it, leaving Thomas to conduct the mission in secret. If things took a turn for the worst, there would be no rescue party.
Finally, on February 5th of 1931, Thomas appeared in Doha, Qatar, healthy and unharmed, and with an incredible bounty taken from the desert in tow. On his way across, he had collected over 400 natural history specimens, including 21 species new to Western science.
Yet, natural history specimens were not all Thomas had brought back from the desert. No, his journey had seen him obtain something even more incredible, a story, one told to him by his Bedouin guides which had been passed down through generations, the story of an ancient lost city in the desert hidden beneath the sand. In the words of one of the guides,
“It was a great city, our fathers have told us, that existed of old; a city rich in treasure, with date gardens and a fort of red silver. It now lies buried beneath the sands, some few days to the north.”
With no time to spare in his grueling attempt to cross the desert, Thomas had been unable to pursue the lost city. And though he intended to return to pick up the chase, he was never able. He did, however, record the story as it was presented to him in his seminal book, Arabia Felix, where it quickly caused a stir among European audiences.
One man who became particularly enamored with the lost desert city was none other than TE Lawrence, more famously known as “Lawrence of Arabia.” To his friends, Lawrence wrote,
“I am convinced that the remains of an ancient Arab civilization are to be found in that desert. I have been told by the Arabs that the ruined castles of the great King ‘Ad, son of Kin’ ad, have been seen by wandering tribes in the region. There is always some substance in these Arab Tales.”
Lawrence even made plans to go to the desert and search for the lost city, but never got the chance after he tragically died in a motorcycle accident in 1935. However, before he died, Lawrence gave the mysterious city a nickname that stuck. He dubbed it “Atlantis of the Sands.”
Could this lost city really exist, an ‘Atlantis of the Sands’ just waiting to be discovered?
Iram in the Quran
Within the Quran, there is a record of an ancient tribe which has long confused historians and scholars. Known as the Ad, the tribe of an area called Iram, they do not appear in the texts of Judaism or Christianity, curious, since all three of these Abrahamic religions are built upon the same history, and thus contain mention of the same ancient tribes and events. Think King Solomon, Moses and the Egyptian Pharaoh, Noah and the Flood, and so on, all in the holy books of all three traditions.
Most famously, the tribe appears in the Quran when Muhammad warns unbelievers,
“Have you not considered how your Lord dealt with Ad – the tribe of Iram – who had lofty pillars, the likes of which were not produced in all the land?”
Many scholars have asked why the Ad of Iram would not have been mentioned elsewhere if they really did construct things “the likes of which were not produced in all the land.” Did the Ad really exist? And if they did, then what happened to them? To this second question, the Quran provides an extraordinary answer.
According to the Quran, the Ad of Iram were a tribe that existed on the Arabian Peninsula after the flood of Noah. There, they constructed a powerful kingdom, using their vast wealth and expertise to “build monuments on every high place,” and “build palaces as if [they] will live forever.”
They were not afraid to assert their power over their neighbors, “viciously” conquering many on the peninsula. As the Quran states about the Ad, “And when you seize you seize as tyrants.”
But this immense power led to arrogance, the people of Iram becoming idolatrous and wicked.
“That was Ad. They denied the signs of their Lord, disobeyed His messengers, and followed the command of every stubborn tyrant.”
Because of this, Allah sent the prophet Hud to warn the people of Iram to renounce their wicked ways.
“And to the people of Ad We sent their brother Hud. He said, “O my people! Worship Allah—you have no other god except Him. Will you not then fear Him?””
“O my people! I do not ask you for any reward for this message. My reward is only from the One Who created me. Will you not then understand?”
To this message, the Ad of Iram were skeptical, even openly derisive of Hud.
“The disbelieving chiefs of his people responded, “We surely see you as a fool, and we certainly think you are a liar.””
“Hud replied, “O my people! I am no fool! But I am a messenger from the Lord of all worlds, conveying to you my Lord’s messages. And I am your sincere advisor.””
Yet, the people of Iram were unmoved.
“They argued, “O Hud! You have not given us any clear proof, and we will never abandon our gods upon your word, nor will we believe in you. All we can say is that some of our gods have possessed you with evil.””
Finding his task more difficult than he may have imagined, Hud began to gently warn the Ad,
“I truly fear for you the torment of a tremendous day.”
“They responded, “It is all the same to us whether you warn us or not. This is simply the tradition of our predecessors. And we will never be punished.””
At this display of arrogance by the Ad, their utter confidence that they were beyond punishment, Hud began to lose his temper, warning them more forcefully,
“He said, “You will certainly be subjected to your Lord’s torment and wrath. Do you dispute with me regarding the so-called gods which you and your forefathers have made up—a practice Allah has never authorized? Then wait! I too am waiting with you.””
“But if you turn away, I have already delivered to you what I have been sent with. My Lord will replace you with others. You are not harming Him in the least. Indeed, my Lord is a vigilant Keeper over all things.”
Even still, the Ad remained defiant, openly challenging Hud,
“They protested, “You have argued with us far too much, so bring upon us what you threaten us with, if what you say is true.””
In attempt to convince the Ad that Hud was speaking the truth, Allah then sent a terrible drought which afflicted Iram. At its height, Hud pleaded with the Ad,
“Oh my people! Ask forgiveness of your Lord and then repent. He will send you abundant rain, and will add strength to your strength and do not turn away as disbelievers.”
But still they would not listen.
Finally, the Ad saw a cloud formation approaching Iram, and believed the rains had come at last, that they were saved. How wrong they were.
“Then when they saw the torment as a dense cloud approaching their valleys, they said happily, “This is a cloud bringing us rain.” ˹But Hud replied, “No, it is what you sought to hasten: a fierce wind carrying a painful punishment!””
It was not rain these clouds were bringing, but a sandstorm. And the result was cataclysmic. As the Quran describes,
“And as for Ad, they were destroyed by a furious, bitter wind which Allah unleashed on them non-stop for seven nights and eight days, so that you would have seen its people lying dead like trunks of uprooted palm trees.
Do you see any of them left alive?”
And thus ends the story of the Ad of Iram, their fate, their city, according to the Quran, obliterated by a sandstorm, buried beneath the desert sands as though they had never existed.
The question asked by many scholars is whether this story is merely a rhetorical tool, an allegory meant as a not-so-veiled threat against turning away from god, or whether there really could be the remains of an ancient once-powerful kingdom buried beneath the Arabian sands.
At least one thing is for sure. While the Ad of Iram may not exist in the other Abrahamic traditions, the Quran is not the only place their story is told …
Iram in "One Thousand and One Nights"
During the 9th century CE, the earliest copy of what would become one of the world’s most popular and longstanding books was being assembled in Syria. It would bring together the earliest myths and folk tales of Persia into an extraordinary compilation which would become known as Alf Laylah wa-Laylah, One Thousand and One Nights.
The basic premise of the book was simple. A Persian king discovers his wife has been unfaithful and has her executed. He then marries a succession of virgins, but has them each executed the morning after the wedding before they have a chance to be unfaithful.
Eventually, the King marries a woman named Scheherazade, who, on the night of their marriage, begins to tell him an incredible story, which she does not finish. The next morning, the King, desperate to hear the story’s conclusion, does not have Scheherazade executed.
That night, she finishes the story, then begins another. This repeats every night, each of the stories she tells representing an ancient Persian myth, until, after one thousand and one nights, the king decides to spare her life, and the two live happily ever after.
After its initial creation in the 9th century, the book’s compilation grew and expanded over the years based on the religious and political climate of the time. In the late-9th and 10th centuries, stories were added from Iraq; in the 13th, stories from Egypt and Syria entered. As this continued, century after century, the book became a sort of living history piece of the myths and stories of the Middle East.
The book finally appeared in Europe in 1704, first in French, and then, after its popularity exploded, in English, German, Italian, Dutch, Danish, and Russian before the end of the 18th century.
It remains in print all over the world to this day, helping to shape our modern understanding of the history of the region.
There is one story within One Thousand and One Nights which warrants particular attention, the story of a man named Abdullah bin Ali Kalibah. In the story, he goes out into the desert in search of his lost camel, whereupon he discovers an incredible deserted city.
“I dismounted and hobbling my dromedary, and composing my mind, entered into the city. Now when I came to the castle, I found it had two vast gates (never in the world was seen their like for size) inlaid with all manner of jewels and jacinths, white and red, yellow and green.
Beholding this I marvelled with great marvel and thought the case mighty wondrous; then entering the citadel in a flutter of fear and dazed with surprise and affright, I found it long and wide; and therein were lofty palaces laid out in pavilions all built of gold and silver and inlaid with many-coloured jewels and jacinths and chrysolites and pearls.
And the door-leaves in the pavilions were like those of the castle for beauty; and their floors were strewn with great pearls and balls, no smaller than hazel nuts, of musk and ambergris and saffron.
Now when I came within the heart of the city and saw therein no created beings of the Sons of Adam I was near swooning and dying for fear. Moreover, I looked down from the great roofs of the pavilion-chambers and their balconies and saw rivers running under them; and in the main streets were fruit-laden trees and tall palms; and the manner of their building was one brick of gold and one of silver.
So I said in myself, ‘Doubtless this is the Paradise promised for the world to come.’”
Returning from the lost city, Abdullah immediately seeks to inform local government officials of his incredible find, describing to them in detail the unbelievable things he had seen, and even showing them “some of the pearls and balls of musk and ambergris and saffron.”
The officials, amazed by the tale but skeptical, send for another man, an expert in such things, and ask him if he had ever heard of such a magnificent city. To this, he immediately replies,
“Yes, O Commander of the Faithful, this is ’Iram with pillars decked and dight, the like of which was never made in the lands,’ and the builder was Shaddad son of Ad the Greater.”
The man then regales Abdullah and the officials with the story of the mighty king Shaddad and his city of ‘Iram of the Pillars.’
“Shaddad reigned over the earth alone. Now he was fond of reading in antique books, and happening upon the description of the world to come and of Paradise, with its pavilions and pileries and trees and fruits and so forth, his soul moved him to build the like thereof in this world, after the fashion aforesaid.
Now under his hand were a hundred thousand kings, each ruling over a hundred thousand chiefs, commanding each a hundred thousand warriors, so he called these all before him and said to them: ’I find in ancient books and annals a description of Paradise as it is to be in the next world, and I desire to build me its like in this world.”
For many years they toiled, constructing this city of paradise for their all-powerful ruler, until finally, they went to the king and told him his city was ready. Yet, before the mighty king could even reach the city, disaster struck.
“Shaddad set out with his host, rejoicing in the attainment of his desire till there remained but one day’s journey between him and Iram of the Pillars.
Then Allah sent down on him and on the stubborn unbelievers with him a mighty rushing sound from the Heavens of His power, which destroyed them all with its vehement clamor, and neither Shaddad nor any of his company set eyes on the city. Moreover, Allah blotted out the road which led to the city, and it stands in its stead unchanged.”
Before Shaddad could enjoy the spoils of his paradise created on earth, he and his city were destroyed, lost to the Arabian sands forever.
It seems, upon a close reading, that the story of Abdullah bin Ali Kalibah both confirms and expands upon the story of the Ad of Iram in the Quran. Could there really be not only a lost city buried under the sands of the Arabian desert, but a lost city of unimaginable wealth, a paradise lost?
For years, centuries even, many scholars asserted that the legendary lost city of Iram was not real, that it was merely a product of religious allegory and fantasy fiction.
That is, until the 1970s, when everything changed …
Iram in the Ebla Tablets
In 1964, an archaeologist from the University of Rome named Paolo Matthiae launched a mission to a site in northern Syria, an area called Mardikh, some 35 miles southwest of Aleppo. For the first few years, Matthiae and his team found very little at the site, save for a few scattered fragments which encouraged them to keep excavating.
Finally, in 1968, came the breakthrough they were hoping for. That year, they uncovered a statue dedicated to the goddess Eshtar, which bore an ancient inscription which read “Ibbit-Lim, King of Ebla.”
This was a stunning find. Ebla was the name of a city spoken about in the texts of the ancient Egyptians, Sumerians, and Akkadians, but never identified in modern times … until now.
Recognizing the importance of the discovery, Matthiae and his team slowly continued excavating the site over a period of years, uncovering numerous temples, walls, gates, and other impressive buildings which had once made up the city of Ebla.
What happened next, however, would blow away everything they had previously found.
In 1974, Matthiae and his team were removing debris from an ancient palace when they discovered 42 clay tablets which appeared to be part of some sort of palace archives. As it turned out, that was only the start. There beneath the earth were many thousands of clay tablets stored neatly on shelves that had collapsed in a fire which seemed to have destroyed the palace. The fire, it appeared, had been a stroke of luck for archaeologists and historians, as it had preserved the clay tablets as if they were in a kiln. The tablets even had clay catalog tags still attached to them for identification.
All told, archaeologists uncovered some 17,000 tablets and fragments containing an unfathomable treasure trove of information about the city of Ebla and the surrounding region at the time. Most incredibly, the tablets contained detailed information on Ebla’s neighbors and trading partners, including Damascus, Gaza, Byblos, Lebanon, and the Canaanites, providing behind the scenes historical information on these places at that time, on kingdoms and civilizations which were known about in modern times, but never in this level of detail. It was, according to many, “one of the most significant discoveries of the 20th century.”
Included in the historical record of these neighbors and trading partners was one place in particular which jumped out at archaeologists – the city of Iram.
The tablets referred to it as “legendary” Iram, “The City of Towers,” seeming to confirm that the Iram “who had lofty pillars” in the Quran, and “lofty palaces” in One Thousand and One Nights, had indeed existed at one time. The tablets even described Iram as a place of black magic and idolatry, seeming to confirm Iram’s purported wicked ways in both books.
After denying its existence for so long, archaeologists had, for the first time, found tangible proof of Iram.
The question is, if there is proof that Iram existed, where is it now? What happened to it, and could it really be buried under sand? Ebla was once a lost city, now found. Could we do the same with Iram?
Iram in the Shisr Oasis?
In 1948, a geological party from Petroleum Development Ltd. of Oman was conducting a survey in the vast desolate expanse of the Empty Quarter in the country’s Dhofar province, when they came upon something most curious.
As they were approaching the ancient oasis of Shisr, they noticed in the distance what at first they believed to be a large white cliff. But as they got closer, they realized that it was not a cliff at all, but the wall of a ruined fort, sitting above a quarry-like cave which led down into “the darkness of the earth.”
The area around this fort was totally deserted, leaving the geologists to wonder if and when the area had been a population center warranting a fort, and what had happened to it. But because they possessed no modern archaeological equipment, and because they were more concerned with getting water from Shisr’s ancient well on their difficult journey in the desert, they did not pursue questions about this fort any further, simply making a note of it and moving on.
Interestingly, Bertram Thomas had, on his own journey across the Empty Quarter in 1930-31, himself stopped at the Shisr oasis, and in fact had made note of a “rude fort” at the site. However, his guides had told him that the fort had been built by a local Sheikh only a few hundred years earlier, and so, like the Petroleum Development Ltd. geologists, Thomas simply made a note of it and moved on.
So, was this fort really only a few hundred years old? Or, was it something much more? The question would remain unanswered, the mystery unsolved, for more than 40 years …
The Discovery of the Lost City of Iram
Nicholas Clapp was a writer, film maker, and amateur archaeologist who rose to prominence in the early 1990s when a self-described “crazy idea” totally changed the archaeology game forever.
As a boy, Clapp had become enamored with the idea of a lost city under the Arabian sands after reading Bertram Thomas’ Arabia Felix. By the time he had reached adulthood, Clapp had resolved that where Thomas had failed to return to the area and find the city, he would pick up the chase, and he would succeed.
But first, came the “crazy idea.”
In the early 1980s, Clapp would, out of the blue, call NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, a place famous for its satellite radar imagery. To the scientists who answered the phone, Clapp would ask a simple, if unheard of, question – “If a city was buried in the desert, could you see it by this radar?”
Somehow, Clapp convinced the scientists at NASA not only that he wasn’t a crank caller, but to take his idea seriously. In fact, they agreed to scan the Empty Quarter with a special radar system which could ‘see’ through sand and pick out subsurface geological features during their next shuttle radar flight in 1984.
Using the images obtained on this flight, Clapp and Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists noticed something astonishing. There, stretching throughout the region and across the Empty Quarter was an extensive network of ancient trade routes, roads where hundreds of thousands of traveling camels had packed down the earth’s surface, now hidden under sand.
Clapp was convinced that these ancient trade routes held the secret to a city lost under the sands. He surmised that where these trade routes converged would have been ancient population centers, the centers of trade along a trade route.
And in fact, when he looked closer, Clapp noticed that a great number of these ancient roads seemed to converge on the same place – the Shisr oasis.
Armed with this information, Clapp enlisted the services of an American archaeologist named Juris Zarins and a British explorer named Sir Ranulf Fiennes, and together they headed to the area to find out what was going on.
Almost immediately as the team began digging, they knew they were onto something.
First, they discovered that the locals who had told Bertram Thomas that Shisr’s fort was only a few hundred years old were correct. The fort only was a few centuries old, except … it was built on the rubble of something much, much older.
As they began to excavate, they started to uncover the remains of a large ancient settlement, which, remarkably, they dated at nearly 5,000 years old.
At the center of this ancient settlement was something truly spectacular. There, stood a huge and imposing permanent fortress, ringed by eight walls, each of them some 10-12 feet high and 60 feet long. At each corner of the fortress stood a massive tower some ten feet in diameter and 30 feet tall.
Based on what they found within this fortress, it appeared to be a royal residence for the king, a processing and storage facility for the ancient city, and a record keeping center for an ancient center of trade.
There was more though. As they continued their work, archaeologists discovered what had become of this once-thriving settlement. It seemed that the city had been built on top of a limestone cavern, before eventually the city’s weight caused it to collapse into a giant sinkhole, destroying the city and forever burying it under sand.
As much as it pained them, archaeologists were forced to admit that the parts of the city which had disappeared into this sinkhole were likely lost forever, leaving them only to wonder and speculate what other mysteries might be revealed if only they were able to recover the unrecoverable.
But for Nicholas Clapp, no further discoveries were required; he believed the mystery had been solved, that he had gotten what he’d come for.
Here was a powerful ancient economic center, marked by imposing towers far beyond what should have been technologically possible at the time, destroyed by a cataclysmic event and buried under sand. For Clapp this could mean only one thing, that the lost city of Iram had finally been found.
Ranulf Fiennes agreed, writing a book in 1992 which claimed the longstanding mystery had been solved. The book was titled, Atlantis of the Sands.
Could this really have been the long-lost city of Iram, found? And if so, what other untold treasures of the once mighty city might be lost deep beneath the earth, and what other ancient mysteries might be solved, or revealed? Could it be the gold and jewels of Iram’s paradise on earth described in One Thousand and One Nights? Or things “the likes of which were not produced in all the land,” as described in the Quran?
Or might it even be something more …
The Mysterious Stone Gates of Arabia
One day in 2004, a neurologist and amateur archaeologist named Abdullah Al-Saeed was out casually searching the Hairat Khaybar lava fields in Saudi Arabia with a hobbyist group which he led, when he discovered an unusual 3-foot-tall stone wall.
Though perhaps peculiar, he did not think much of it at the time. It was not until 2008, when new and emerging technology totally changed his view on the situation. Using Google Earth, which was only then becoming widely available, Al-Saeed was able to realize the true extent of these curious structures in the area, which he began calling ‘gates.’
There was not one, not two or three, nor even dozens, but hundreds of them, spread across a vast area. As he described,
“I was literally stunned and could not sleep that night. Flying like a bird all over the Harrat from one enigmatic structure to another! How come we passed by these structures without appreciating their design?”
Realizing these structures would require a deeper examination than he was qualified to give, Al-Saeed sent the photos he’d pulled from Google Earth to David Kennedy, an archaeologist at the University of Western Australia, and a man who had spent 40 years documenting stone structures and funeral monuments on the Arabian Peninsula.
Over the course of the next decade, Kennedy would search for and document these stone ‘gates,’ finally reporting in 2017 that he and his team had discovered some 400 of the structures, spanning from several hundred to several thousand feet long, some up to 30 feet thick.
Despite his many years of experience, Kennedy was perplexed as to the purpose of these huge structures. In his words,
“They don’t look like structures where people would have lived, nor do they look like animal traps, or for disposing of dead bodies. It’s a mystery as to what their purpose would have been.”
By 2021, the mystery had only deepened as researchers reported having found over 1,000 of the structures, which they were now calling mustatils, the Arabic word for rectangle, over an area of nearly 100,000 square miles.
Even more astonishingly, archaeologists dated the structures at over 7,000 years old, making them older than Stonehenge or the Giza pyramids.
The more mustatils that were found, the more baffled archaeologists became. What were these structures for, they asked? And why were some highly visible, while others seemed almost hidden? Moreover, how were the ancients able to communicate how to build these imposing structures over such great distances, and how had they managed to build some on the sides of mountains and volcanoes?
It is an archaeological mystery to be sure, but then again, it is but one of a growing number of archaeological mysteries popping up around the region in recent years.
Consider for example the enormous stone circle found in the Golan Heights in 2015, revealed to be the same age as Stonehenge. It is actually five circles, made up of huge stones between 6 and 8 feet in height. In Hebrew, it is known as ‘The Wheel of Giants,’ and perhaps with good reason; at over 500 feet in diameter, it is almost twice as big as Stonehenge.
David Kennedy points out that similar “Big Circles” have been found throughout the region, all with a similar appearance “too close to be a coincidence.” Who could have built these massive stone circles, and why?
Or, consider the ancient “funerary avenues” found in 2022, stretching for thousands of miles across the Arabian Peninsula, ancient corridors linking oases and pastures, bordered by thousands of burial monuments. What ancient civilization could have created these ancient superhighways stretching for so many thousands of miles?
In the opinion of one archaeologist who works in the region,
“The archeological finds coming out of these regions have the potential to profoundly change our understanding of the early history of the Middle East.”
But how?
Some have an answer …
The Nephilim's Connection to Iram of The Pillars
According to some, an explanation for the giant stone structures, buried cities, and extensive roadways discovered across the Arabian Peninsula can be found where the mystery of the lost city of Iram started, in the pages of the Quran.
There, the Ad of Iram are described not only as a mighty tribe of imposing pillars and economic might, but as huge and powerful individuals, large enough to uproot trees with their bare hands and carve houses into mountains.
“Who is mightier than us in strength?” the Ad ask.
Perhaps their giant stature allowed them to build not only the paradise city of Iram, but the huge stone structures and superhighways found across the Arabian Peninsula, across deserts, on the sides of mountains, in lava fields.
Interestingly, while the Ad of Iram do not appear in the Jewish or Christian bibles, they sound an awful lot like something that does – the Nephilim. In the book of Genesis, the Nephilim are mysterious beings with enormous size and strength, described as the offspring of the “sons of God” and the “daughters of men,” giants so large that in their presence, humans “became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”
Could the Nephilim have been the Ad of Iram?
The connection goes further, and gets more mysterious. Genesis describes the Nephilim as “mighty men who were of old.” In Islam, there is a group of ancient deities called the Djinn, who are also known as “the old ones.” Like the Nephilim, the Djinn were said to have procreated with humans, and, according to some, it was these Djinn that built the city of Iram.
Interestingly, the ancient Arabic word for pillar, as in ‘Iram of the Pillars,’ has another meaning – “old one.” Was Iram of the Pillars really the city of old ones? And were the Ad of Iram really the Djinn?
Going further, the giant stone mustatils found across the Arabian Peninsula are known to local Bedouin tribes as “the works of the old men.” Could these massive stone structures, and perhaps the ancient superhighways which connect them, really have been built by these ‘old men,’ these ancient giants recorded in the Abrahamic traditions as the Djinn, the Ad of Iram, and the Nephilim?
To answer these questions, one might have to look outside of the official canon of the Abrahamic religions, to another ancient holy book, one which tells a story so dramatic it was banned from the Christian bible.
It is known as the Book of Enoch.
If you want to know what this book reveals about ancient giants, and the history not only of the Arabian Peninsula, but of humanity itself, you can watch our video on the Book of Enoch.
